Patrick Worrall

“What you''ve got to understand is that men like him are the aristocracy in here. The armed robbers and contract killers. They''re a breed apart.”Darren Sinfield, the most notorious inmate at Lower Marston maximum-security prison, has gone over the wall and is thought to be holed up in nearby Avonford, a decaying town with a squalid underbelly.The intelligence officer tasked with hunting him down, Declan Rennard, was an Avonford man himself back in the day. But times have changed. He used to know where the bodies are buried. Now he’s in danger of becoming one of them.To catch a criminal, Dec is going to have to start thinking like one and that means entering his own dark history to engage in a twisted game of cat and mouse with a man who plays it better than anyone.But unearthing the past will lead him into some dangerous places - the brutal world of organised crime, the dirty secrets of the security establishment and an inverted skyscraper under central London that is home to all the stories Britain would rather forget...

''An espionage story of high literary calibre'' Strong Words Magazine''A dramatic and thoroughly immersive account of loyalty, ideology and betrayal'' Guardian''A terrific new voice in spy fiction…A complex, action packed portrait of a continent in ferment’ Mail on Sunday''In remarkably granular detail, Worrall conjures up a Fifties Paris where historical and fictional characters coexist'' Sunday Times________________It''s 1951 and the servants of Stalin are closing in on the occupied nations of eastern Europe. As the Red Army tightens the net, Greta - best and bravest of freedom fighters - is told to escape to the West and undertake a dangerous mission.Greta''s task is to find a missing girl: the precious daughter of a partisan general who was sent into exile in the final days of the war.But the so-called Free World is no place for vulnerable young refugees. Europe is in ruins, the old Empires are dying, and a spectacular cast of spivs, gangsters and rival intelligence agencies are fighting over the scraps.Crossing the Iron Curtain will require nerves of steel as Greta faces down the French mob, ex-Nazis, Soviet spies, all the glamour and temptation of Paris and ultimately, her own demons.The Exile is a white-knuckle ride into the black heart of postwar Europe - a terrifying world in which allies and enemies are impossible to tell apart.________Praise for The Partisan''Fast-paced, intriguing and deeply atmospheric'' Tom Bradby''Remarkedly assured debut ... the advent of a real talent...One to watch'' Sunday Times''Impressive ... The scene-setting is finely detailed and evocative, the characters skilfully drawn'' Financial Times''Immersive, intriguing, and intelligent - incredibly impressive, up there with the best in the genre'' Lee ChildPatrick Worrall, The Bookseller bestseller, July 2023